


5 Times Hel Saved The Life of an Avenger, and The 1 Time She Didn't

by DisappearingGirl



Category: Captain America, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Hel is a BAMF, Hel makes Game of Thrones references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisappearingGirl/pseuds/DisappearingGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of Hel's job is to make sure that people don't die too early. She's pretty good at this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Hel Saved The Life of an Avenger, and The 1 Time She Didn't

**1.**

The plane is going down.  _The plane is going down. This is how I'm going to die,_  Steve thinks, _in a plane crash._  When the plane hits the freezing water, all Steve can do is squeeze his eyes shut and pray. _Dear God, don't let me die like this. Please._  Water quickly fills the fuselage, and it's too cold for Steve to really fight for an exit, but he tries.  _Oh, God._  It's too much, the cold. It's binding and freezing and constricting and oh, God. Steve's hallucinating, now. There's a pale woman (girl? She can't be older than sixteen), so pale, taking hold of his hand. She puts a finger to her lips and offers a soft smile. _An angel,_  Steve thinks, with silver-white hair haloing her beautiful features.

" _Sleep,_ " she whispers, voice ringing clear in Steve's head, despite the water that's slowly fighting its way into his lungs. His eyes shut once more, of their own accord, and as he blacks out, Steve can feel the ice forming around him.

**2.**

Clint can't feel his body. And honestly? He's almost thankful. After beating him to broken pulp, Swordsman just walked away. He left him there, lying on the ground. Clint knows that he needs help, and that he needs to move to get it, but he can't. If he moves, it's going to start hurting again, and like bitch.  _Why am I so stupid? Why?_

He doesn't know how long he's been lying there when he hears light footsteps.  _Thank goodness,_  he thinks. Goodness, not God; he'd stopped believing in God three weeks after he and Barney ran away. When the person crouches down next to him, he sees that it's a woman. That nice woman, one of the trapeze artists. Her copper hair falls across her face, and she tucks it behind her ear.

"Don't move," the woman says, and her voice is hypnotising, locking him in place. She places a hand against his chest and he swears, he fucking swears that her eyes turn the golden colour of flames for a second before fading back to their original shade of green. The hand on his chest suddenly feels like a lead weight, slowly spreading through his whole body, and he's never felt heavier in his life. When the pressure lifts, he realises that he's hardly got a scratch on his body, that he's fit as a horse. Holy cow. She removes her hand and stands up. "This never happened, kid. Got it?"

**3.**

The flames are hot. It's too hot to stay in here, but Natalia's trapped. And alone. She screams when two arms wrap around her waist and pick her up, carrying her through the fire. She's still screaming when she's set down on the pavement outside. "It's okay, _solnyshko_. You're safe."

**4.**

He pulls the trigger.

_"Not that I don't like you, or anything, but you can't do this. You're not allowed."_

_Bruce turns toward the voice and is shocked to see a girl that looks remarkably like his sister, when he'd still had one. "What?" The dark-haired girl rolls her eyes, spinning around in her chair like a child._

_"You're not allowed to die yet. The Norns'll be on my ass if I let you." She rolls her chair across the dark marble floor and scoots up to him. "You're a good guy, Bruce, really. And so is the Hulk." She gives him a red lipstick smile and touches his forehead._

When Bruce wakes up, he can still hear the echo of her (quite frank) last words to him.

" _Don't kill yourself._ "

**5.**

"What do we say to the god of death?" a voice calls out from the hall. " 'Not today'." A thin, dark-haired woman walks out from the hall and right up to Tony, smiling. Jesus Christ. Smiling? His arc reactor is in Obi-- S _tane's_  hands, and he's fucking dying. Now is really not the time to smile. He can't really understand what Stane's saying anymore, and he's trying not to look at this woman that either bypassed security and walked right into his house, or just doesn't exist. He figures that since Ob--  _Stan_ e doesn't notice her, she just doesn't exist. The woman sits down next to him and places a cold hand on his chest. He tenses as the cold spreads.

"You can look at me, you know," she whispers, as if it's a secret. Tony's eyes glance over at her and the first thing he notices is the grey of her eyes. Now Tony's all for recognising beauty when he sees it, but  _damn_. She's more than that. She goes on to speak further. "You can talk, too. He thinks you're dying."  _What?_  The woman rolls her eyes. "It might feel like you're dying, but the shrapnel hasn't even touched your heart, Tony. He thinks you're looking at him. That's what I want him to see."  _O...kay?_

"Who are you?" Tony asks, his voice stressed.

"My name's Hel." Tony nods politely.

"Why are you doing... whatever it is you're doing?" Hel laughs softly and casts him an unreadable look. She seems to think about his answer for a few seconds before replying:

"Obadiah Stane is a git who thinks he can change fate -- I'm just here to prove him wrong." Warmth floods Tony's body and he's reminded that he had been cold. Hel pulls her hand back. "That should keep your heart intact for about ten minutes," she says, satisfied. She stands as Stane does, and disappears in a flash of blue fire.

**+1.**

"So that's what it does."

"I'm sorry." A voice to his right makes Agent Coulson turn his head. A dark-haired, teenage girl is sitting next to him, clad in a black dress and ivory crown. She turns to look at him and he sees that half her hair is actually white. The one green eye and one grey eye seem to penetrate his very soul when she says, "You're dying."  _Well, yeah._  "There's nothing I can really do to stop it," she continues, "but just know that this has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the fact that you totally just shot my dad with a  _ray gun_." Phil would chuckle if it didn't hurt so much. Instead, he just smiles. Knowingly, the girl takes his hand, and the pain lessens.

"You can call me Hel, by the way," she says casually, as if he isn't bleeding out on the floor of the helicarrier. "I'm not really supposed to get your soul, because you died in battle, but I'm allowed to petition for it when the Valkyries come." Hel is looking around, now, and Phil realises that everything around them is moving in slow-motion. "They're always late, though, so we might have to wait a while." Phil hums.

"Do you petition for souls often?" he asks, and Hel laughs, shaking her head.

"Definitely not. It involves fighting a Valkyrie, and that's never pleasant." She looks back at him. "It's not that I'm afraid I'll lose, 'cause I won't. I'm afraid I'll win, is all."

"And why is that?"

Hel sighs and turns to look back at the slow chaos. "My sword,  _Gurth_ , was crafted by the dwarves and blessed by the elves. Do you know what 'gurth' means?" Coulson shakes his head. " 'Gurth' is the elvish word for 'death'." She sighs again. "When wielded by me,  _Gurth_  can kill not only the living, but the dead as well. That includes Valkyries." When she finishes speaking, they can hear the sudden, loud battle-cry of a horse. And okay, horses probably don't have battle-cries, but that's definitely what this sounds like.

Two hooves slam to the ground immediately in front of Phil, and okay, for all his poise, Phil's a little freaked out because:  _A._  he's never been this close to a seemingly homicidal horse, and  _B._  the woman riding said horse is about ten times more intimidating than his own mother. The woman raises her spear and points it at Phil and he starts to feel a bit of sympathy for anyone who's ever died in battle because oh God. Hel stands in front of Phil, and when her hands slips from his, he can suddenly feel the throbbing pain again. Hel draws a sword that she did _not_ have before, one which he figures is  _Gurth_. In all the pain, though, Phil blacks out. When he wakes, the only clue as to what happened in this battle between Hel and the Valkyrie is a very lost-looking war horse. Hel grabs the horse's reins and smiles at Phil.

"Let's go to Hel."


End file.
